I hope you had a great deer season with a lot of good memories. If you want a head start on next season’s buck, post season scouting for deer is the best way to know where you need to be next year. As soon as the snow is gone during or after winter, you’ll be able to see all the rut activity from the previous fall. If you wait until green up, you’ll be too late.

Post season deer scouting will allow you to identify primary scrape areas, rub lines, travel corridors within cover between bedding areas. Even if the dominant buck in that area was harvested, another buck will take his place and use the same features of the property.

Prepare your trees and shooting lanes while post season deer scouting. Then in August you can make a quick check of your spot and clear out any summer growth while hanging your stands. This will keep the area undisturbed and preserve your spot as a true ambush situation come hunting season Post Season Deer Scouting.

Several years ago my post season deer scouting really started to pay off big time after I watched a DVD by John and Chris Eberhart called Bowhunting Pressured Whitetails – Vol. 1 “Post-Season Scouting and Tree Preparation”

I thought I knew everything there was to know about getting a leg up early on next Fall’s buck until I watched this DVD and read his book. I have not seen any DVD anywhere that goes into the detail that this one does about post season deer scouting. You won’t see this information on TV anywhere. It will take years off your learning curve. I couldn’t wait to apply what I had learned during my next post season deer scouting.

The next fall, this buck was a direct result of acting on a couple tips I learned from John and Chris.

This time of year most hunters are content to sit home on the couch and watch some football. Not me. Now is one of the best times to get out in the woods and do some post season deer scouting.

But first, I would recommend going to John and Chris’ site to grab a copy of their DVD. It will be one of the most valuable $15 you spend this winter.

If you’ve already seen this DVD, leave a comment below to benefit others and/or pass along this post using the icons below. Your friends will thank you about all the things that can be learned about post season deer scouting.

Why am I sooo excited? Because in my opinion it is the best week or 10 day period for getting multiple shot opportunities at when bowhunting whitetail mature bucks in the midwest.

Why? Because this is the narrow window of time that the mature bucks are ready to breed, but the does are not. It’s called the pre-rut. That means the bucks will be on their feet during daylight hours searching for that first receptive doe, and the best time of day to be in your stand bowhunting whitetail is between 10 am and 2pm.

I believe the pre-rut is better for bowhunting whitetail and getting more cracks at mature bucks than the rut, because during the rut the bucks are locked down with a hot doe and don’t travel as much while they will spend a whole day tending that doe.

Years ago I had a hard time getting myself to sit in a tree from 10am -2pm, but I quickly learned that mature bucks cruise around looking for hot does in the middle of the day and appear to not be as wary or cautious as they are during the morning or evening hunts. I didn’t see as many deer, but I saw more quality bucks while bowhunting whitetail.

There are 2 main reasons that you will see more quality bucks when bowhunting whitetail in the pre-rut.

First, the does are generally bedded down at midday and its easier for bucks to locate them simply by going from bedding area to bedding area to see if any does are hot to trot. This is why I like bowhunting whitetail in travel corridors like fence rows, tree lines, or any strip of thick cover that connects different woodlots, swamps, or standing cornfields where does normally bed down in security.

Younger bucks may walk through an open field during the rut or pre-rut, but but I have noticed while bowhunting whitetail that a mature buck is much more likely to stay in some sort of cover during daylight hours as he travels.

The second reason I think mature bucks cruise more during midday, at this time of year while looking for some action, is that they rarely encounter hunters bowhunting whitetail during the midday. Now I know a lot of  hunters are quick to dismiss this idea because they simply do not believe a whitetail is that smart. That is true, until the bucks live through a couple hunting seasons with antlers. If they survive to their 3rd hunting season where there’s even medium hunting pressure, this makes them a whole different animal and they wise up to the patterns of hunters bowhunting whitetails being in woods for a few hours in the morning and evening. While bowhunting whitetail I have noticed a big difference in the way they seem to be more at ease and not as wary while they travel at midday.

So instead of getting up early for bowhunting whitetail like I normally do to hunt in the morning, I’ll sometimes sleep in and head out to my tree around 9am. I know, I know, it just doesn’t seem right to head out into the woods at 9am. But I try bowhunting whitetail everyday during this period and sleeping in once in a while helps me from getting burned out.

I never thought I would ever get “burn out” from bowhunting whitetail too much.

If you don’t already have a stand ready to go in one of these travel corridors, be careful not to spoil a good spot for bowhunting whitetail if you scout and  prep a tree at this time of year. Springtime is really when you should be doing all of that.

Well, I’m headed out of state for this week. Looks like it will be dry and cooler for the best week of bowhunting whitetail all year. I’ll keep you posted with any success.

Good Hunting,

Randy

Feel free to leave a comment below of your experiences you’ve had while bowhunting whitetail during the midday.

It’s the period after the first few days of the bowhunting whitetail season until the pre-rut heats up around Halloween. This is the time that a lot of hunters are scratching their heads trying to figure out where all the big bucks went.  So where did they go?

They didn’t go anywhere. Most of them are still hanging out in the same place, except only when it’s dark out. The mature bucks figured out real soon when the bowhunting whitetail season started, that its not safe to wander around during daylight hours. So if you’re only hunting mature bucks, here’s one of my bowhunting whitetail tips for the October lull…..Go Fishing!

If there’s any hunting pressure where you go bowhunting whitetail, then you can bet that in most cases, the big bucks in your area are bedded down an hour before light in the morning and won’t expose themselves until it’s too dark to shoot. They didn’t reach their 3rd set of antlers by being careless. That is until the pre-rut.

The pre-rut, which starts generally around Halloween in most regions, is when they start to think with something other than their brain. This is when you want to put your time into sitting on stand when bowhunting whitetail. And not just the morning and evening hunts but preferably midday from 11 am to 2 pm.

Here’s why. In areas of even moderate hunting pressure, mature bucks have patterned hunters better than the other way around. That’s why they bed down before the hunters arrive and don’t go out to feed until after dark. However, they also know when hunters quit hunting in the morning around 10 am. and when they go back to their stands around 3 pm. That’s why big bucks will move within areas of cover between 11 and 2.

Many hunters have a hard time believing in bowhunting whitetail like this because these bucks prefer to move within cover, so this activity goes unnoticed to most hunters.

So this year, take a morning during the pre-rut and climb into your stand around 9:45 and sit until 2:30. As long as you’re not on a field edge or in an open woods, but rather between a couple bedding areas with good cover, you will increase your odds at a mature buck. After all, if you go bowhunting whitetail like everyone else, you’ll get results like everyone else.

So going fishing during the October lull is a great way to keep you from over-hunting your area until the pre-rut kicks in for bowhunting whitetail.